Striking Oil Workers Are Fighting for Safe Communities, Not Just Better Conditions for Themselves

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The safety record of companies like Chevron—not just to workers but to the communities around them—makes it clear why oil workers are still on strike. (USW / YouTube)

The federal agency that investigates refinery catastrophes released its final report late last month on the massive fire, volatile vapor release and toxic smoke plume at Chevron’s Richmond, California, refinery in 2012 that imperiled 19 workers and sickened 15,000 residents of surrounding communities.

The report says Chevron knew the pipe that ruptured was made of material likely to corrode, that pipes of the same material at Chevron plants had previously failed and caused fires, that Chevron repeatedly rebuffed experts’ recommendations to replace the pipe and that when the pipe did begin to breach, Chevron disastrously attempted to patch it instead of shutting down the high-pressure, high-temperature hydrocarbon process unit to which it was attached.

For neighborhoods around the refinery, the upshot of all of those decisions by Chevron was a nearly six-hour order for residents to remain indoors as their homes were engulfed in smoke and soot. Approximately 15,000 received medical treatment for breathing difficulty, chest pain, headaches and eye irritation. Twenty were admitted to hospitals. Incredibly, 19 workers caught in a highly flammable vapor cloud all survived with only minor injuries.

Because of oil companies’ bad-faith bargaining and other serious unfair labor practices, more than 5,000 refinery workers who are members of the United Steelworkers (USW) union are conducting unfair labor practice strikes across America. Those at Richmond are among 25,000 USW-represented refinery workers still working, but they strongly support the demand for safety and they’re strongly supported by Richmond residents who know they’re endangered when workers are. They all want refineries to become good neighbors.

Still, Chevron belittled Richmond for the lawsuit. Its spokesperson, Melissa Ritchie, said: “We believe the decision to pursue such a suit is a waste of the city’s resources and yet another example of its failed leadership.”

After the fire, Richmond residents, environmentalists and USW members began working together in a coalition called the Refinery Action Collaborative to protect the safety and health of refinery workers and citizens living near the Richmond refinery and five others located within a 25-mile radius in the San Francisco Bay area.

Michael Smith, who has worked at the Chevron refinery in Richmond for 13 years, serves on the collaborative as a representative of his local union. Previous coalitions have not typically included workers, but this one understands their role, Smith said. “The workers are the front line of the community. If we are safe, then the community around the refinery is safe.”

In the past, Smith said, Chevron deployed a successful divide and conquer strategy, telling workers that the community and environmentalists were trying to shut the refinery and kill jobs. Now, however, the three groups understand their shared interest, which is maintaining a clean-operating, tax paying, job sustaining facility. “We want them to run it safely, to be a good neighbor, not shut it down,” Smith said.

Tom Butt, Richmond’s new mayor, is among the candidates who defeated the Chevron slate. Before the 2012 fire, Butt said, Chevron had always insisted safety was its highest priority. However, every investigative report on Chevron’s behavior proved that wasn’t true, the mayor said.

“They are certainly a rich neighbor. But I can’t say that has made the neighborhood improve,” said Butt, who has lived in Richmond for 42 years.

Mike Parker, who worked to support Butt and the progressive slate of candidates that won, lives less than a mile from the refinery.

He said after the fire, black particles and soot settled on everything—cars, homes, vegetables in gardens. “It was clear that people were breathing a lot of this stuff,” he said. And they didn’t know what was in it.

Later, when residents read the investigative reports, he said they were angry, “This wasn’t an accident or an act of God. This was a result of conscious policy of a company to cut corners.”

Parker said he hopes Chevron will be changed by the many forces now working together for safety because at this point, “Chevron is a very arrogant neighbor, one who seems to totally run on the basis of [the fact that] it has the money and therefore it can get its way.”

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Leo Gerard is international president of the United Steelworkers Union, part of the AFL-CIO. The son of a union miner; Gerard started working at a nickel smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, at age 18, and rose through the union's ranks to be appointed the seventh international president Feb. 28, 2001. For more information about Gerard, visit usw.org.